Central and South America's Largest Jewish Community, as well as the second largest Jewish community in the Americas, Argentina's Jews number some 200,000. From the first secret Jews who escaped the Inquisitions of Portugal and Spain in the late 16th century, to greater numbers of Jewish immigrants who settled Argentina in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to build agricultural communities, settle the cities, or take refuge from Eastern European persecution and the Holocaust  both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have maintained a colorful and diverse Jewish presence in Argentina.

WON'T YOU JOIN ME in visiting the vibrant Jewish Community of Argentina?We will experience the splendid Argentine culture and Jewish communities, synagogues, museums, folk arts & dance, spectacular landscape of the country north and south.I will personally escort your tour with stories of Argentine and South American Jewry, as we travel together to magnificentBuenos Aires, enjoy Shabbat with the Jewish agricultural settlements of Entre Rios Province, and view the breathtaking and astonishingIguazu Falls from both Argentina and Brazil. Remain on a 5-day optional extension and you'll experience the Magnificent Andes Mountain Region of Salta, known as Argentina's Cradle of Folklore.

Our next tour will be scheduled shortly. Contact us to be notified of a future tour.

While Buenos Aires is home to the largest single Jewish community in Argentina (some 90% of Argentina's Jews), Jewish agricultural settlements and farms still dot the countryside, notably in the provinces of Entre Rios and Santa Fe, as well as communities such as Rosario, Cordoba, Concordia, La Plata, and Mar del Plata. In fact, it was farmers who comprised most of the first Jewish settlers in 19th century Argentina. In a second wave over the century to follow, many would move to the cities to take positions as peddlers, merchants, and traders. A third wave has made a central contribution to Argentina's culture as professional musicians and composers, writers, performers, artists, and filmmakers, as well as businessmen and women. An estimated 70 congregations serve Buenos Aires. Orthodox congregations make up the largest number in the city, with conservative and progressive (reform) congregations increasing. The Jewish Theological Seminary branch in Buenos Aires, which opened in 1962, ordained its first woman rabbi 30 years later in 1992.

Argentina's Jewish community has seen a great many challenges in recent years, notably the terror incited by the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and Jewish Community Center in the early nineties, as well as recent desecration of Jewish monuments. The economic decline of the late nineties to the present has been a great hardship to many. More than a third of the Jewish community has emigrated in recent years to Israel, the United States, and Europe. Nevertheless, a vibrant cultural and educational life remains in Argentina's Jewish community.

It is said that the proportion of Jewish organizations to Jewish inhabitants in Buenos Aires is greater than that of any other city on the planet. While approximately 70 Jewish learning institutions boasted an approximately 60% enrollment among Jews in the entire country until the late nineties, some 40 Jewish schools continue to serve today, with enrollment figures still high, even with economic conditions preventing many from private study. The community is assisted by aid from Jewish humanitarian organizations, missions, and programs worldwide in addition to the Delegacion de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA), founded in 1939 to protect Jewish rights, and the AMIA, a central cultural organization providing health and human services to the Buenos Aires Jewish community. Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, and Spanish publications have served this community since the 19th century, with an astonishing number of successful Jewish Argentine writers.

WON'T YOU JOIN ME in visiting the vibrant Jewish Community of Argentina?We will experience the splendid Argentine culture and Jewish communities, synagogues, museums, folk arts & dance, spectacular landscape of the country north and south.I will personally escort your tour with stories of Argentine and South American Jewry, as we travel together to magnificentBuenos Aires, enjoy Shabbat with the Jewish agricultural settlements of Entre Rios Province, and view the breathtaking and astonishingIguazu Falls from both Argentina and Brazil. Remain on a 5-day optional extension and you'll experience the Magnificent Andes Mountain Region of Salta, known as Argentina's Cradle of Folklore.

Our next tour will be scheduled shortly. Contact us to be notified of a future tour.

AND KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR ...

CHINA ... I continue to assist in the planning of private or group tours to China and am happy to help you create an itinerary for yourself, your family, or your group to travel when it is perfect for you. I do not have any planned visits to China myself at this time, but hope to return to see much more of the country with a small group visiting the northern and southern Silk Roads. Please e-mail me at joyfulnoise@earthlink.net if you have an interest in this kind of visit to China or if I may assist you in creating a personalized tour.

I wish you many happy, healthy travels and a year of insight and beauty.